Many believe the campaign for power in New Brunswick will be waged on Bernard Lord's personal and political popularity with voters.

Four years ago, Lord was an underdog, a young man at the start of a promising political career. This election, he is hoping voters will see him as something different -- a tested and proven premier who has brought positive change to New Brunswick.


No one predicted the Progressive Conservatives were due for the biggest win in the party's history when they swept into power in 1999. Lord brought the party back from more than a decade in the political hinterland, winning 44 of 55 legislature seats. Adding to that triumph, Lord's Tories gained three more in subsequent byelections where Liberal MLAs had resigned.

That first campaign was easy for Lord, based on a promise to remove hated tolls from New Brunswick's planned four-lane highway. The hard part came after the election, when that promise, and plenty of others had to be fulfilled.

Lord survived a rocky first few weeks, when rumours swirled that the new premier was feeling overwhelmed by his unexpected victory. He based his first year as premier on promises he made during the election campaign. The tolls came off the highway, and the $900 million cost of the project was added straight to the province's debt. He raised minimum wage, made casual nursing jobs permanent and reduced the size of cabinet. He also reduced personal and corporate income tax.

Lord is the perfect example of New Brunswick's dual nature. He comes from a bilingual family. His father is anglophone and his mother is francophone. He grew up in greater Moncton, speaking both languages with ease. At the University of Moncton he earned a bachelor's degree in social science with a major in economics as well as a law degree. He practiced law before winning the Tory leadership in 1997.

Political science professor Richard Sigurdson believes this campaign will be mostly about the government's record during the last four years, and Bernard Lord's personal popularity. This has been "a very cautious government, which didn't raise expectations too high," he says.
As a leader, Lord has had ample opportunity to shine at home and on the national stage. In February, he led the charge by provincial premiers for more health care dollars following the Romanow Report. At the first ministers' health care summit in Ottawa, Lord insisted on more money for existing programs, rather than an expanded role for Medicare. "I think the funding should be directed to services that exist now so that Canadians have access to primary health care seven days a week, 24 hours a day."

More significant than his determination at the health care summit was his flirtation with the federal Tory Leadership last fall. Lord made a barn-burner speech at a Tory gathering in Edmonton, where prominent Progressive Conservatives lined up to shake his hand and launched a "draft Lord" movement complete with promises from big bank accounts in Toronto.
After a lingering look at the party's top job, Lord said he wasn't ready to leap just yet.

Once viewed as shy, awkward and soft-spoken, Bernard Lord had emerged as a strong and steady voice.